Dear Music Directors,
It is with a great deal of pleasure that I am announcing that ArtsEast will be the new coordinator of the children’s choir festival to be held on April 9th on the EOU campus in La Grande. As you know, Louise Kienzle has relocated and her new responsibilities made it difficult to continue as the coordinator. She has been graciously serving in an advisory capacity for which we are very grateful. We love having our own ArtEast sponsored group, the Union County Children’s Choir, participate in the festival and are excited to step in to see that it continues. It will continue to feature elementary school choirs from the ten counties in our service area; Malhuer, Baker, Union, Umatilla, Wallowa, Harney, Morrow, Gilliam, Grant and Wheeler.
Attached you will find an information sheet and a registration form which will be due on March 9th. The information sheet lists the two mass choir pieces as selected by Mike Frasier who will once again serve as our music director. Please contact him if you have specific questions about these two arrangements.
As you can see, we are going to have a theme festival this year: Way Out West in Oregon: Celebrating Our Western Heritage through Music and Song. We hope this will give your children a sense of pride in their western culture. I would also suggest that you share this information with other members of your staff so you might identify cross-curriculum ways of working together; 4th grade Oregon history would be one good example. We will also be delighted to have Lonnie Shurtleff as our guest artist. He is renowned in cowboy poetry and western music circles and should delight your children with his stories and songs. Lonnie is one of our new artists-in-residence so you may want to check him out on our Artist-in-Residence page.
Below is a list of music directors that will be receiving this e-mail. If you can think of anyone else, please feel free to forward the information and have them get in touch with me.
I am looking forward to working with you this year.
Thank you,
Deena
Deena Heath, Executive Director
ArtsEast
PO Box 541
La Grande, OR 97850
541-962-3624
E-mail.
Louise Kinzle, Windy River/Boardman Elementary Schools
Michelle Homan, Joseph Elementary School
Corin Parker, Arlington Elementary School
Matt Carlsen, N. Powder Charter School
Cheryl Carlson, McKay/Sherwood Elementary Schools
Melissa Cunningham, Milton-Freewater
Peter Wordelman, Union County Children’s Choir
Carol Beuabien, Alameda Elementary School
Chris Roboth, District 9 OME
Kevin Durfee, District 6 OME
